Heavenly Host
by suz mc
Summary: On Christmas Eve, 2008, Dean gets caught up in a Silent Night; this is a quick one shot written last night after Santa Claus visited and my babies went to bed. :-


Heavenly Host

By: Suz Mc

Quiet was a luxury Dean Winchester never thought to have again. As he sat in the deserted church, he felt the peace, the quiet practically stroking against him. Forty years of agonizing screams seemed to still vibrate in his ears. Sometimes the sound had been so loud his teeth would rattle in tune to the bitter suffering. Sometimes the suffering was his own. Sometimes his own doing.

This year, he and Sam had truly celebrated. Not like last year. Last year had been an effort that ended in melancholy. Like Dean was some kid being sucked dry by chemo and dragged off to Disney World for his last party. This year was real and true Christmas. Of course, that old Apocalypse bug-a-boo was lingering around but even the Four Horsemen seemed to be giving them a break for the holidays.

Now, with Sam passed out on kickass eggnog, Dean found himself in an out of the way little church alone. The priest and the nuns were nestled snug in their beds by this time of night and Dean leaned back in the worn wooden pew and stared at the Nativity scene put together in front of the church. The paint on Mary and Joseph was chipped and the Wise Men looked like the moths had enjoyed many a meal from their robes. Baby Jesus looked to be in pretty good shape lying in the manger that was propped up with a few bricks covered by fresh hay.

The angel perched on top of the stable roof kept grabbing his attention. All white and holy, it smiled down over the scene, halo gleaming with what must have been freshly applied glitter.

"Dude, you guys have sure changed wardrobe lately," Dean whispered to the plastic cherub.

"It ceased to be practical."

Castiel's instant appearances didn't even startle him anymore. Tonight, it didn't even annoy him. So much for solitude. Dean kept his gaze fixed on the rundown nativity scene and decided to take advantage of his heavenly buddy's knowledge.

"This Christmas stuff? Is it real?" Dean asked, ignoring the angel's oddly intense attention.

"If you are asking about Santa Claus, I'm afraid I have bad news."

Dean's laughter echoed off the walls of the vacant church. "You are cultivating a definite smartass streak, Cas. You make me proud."

"The learning curve is a steep one." Castiel's lips curled into a genuine smile, not like the smiles he seemed to try on as part of his human costume from time to time.

"You didn't answer my question. Is it real or is it just a story or a metaphor or something?"

"What do you think?"

"I think the virgin birth thing is a bit hard to swallow."

Now it was Castiel's turn to laugh. It was a lighter sound than Dean's. It was unforced, unused. It came out in bubbles that floated against the walls. "You were dragged from the pits of Hell but you find Immaculate Conception unbelievable? Humans are truly odd creatures."

"We're odd?"

" You ask the Father for salvation, he sends it, and still you don't believe," Castiel said, shaking his head.

"Forgive me for wondering if a two thousand year old story might have some holes in it," Dean replied. It annoyed him when Castiel spoke to him like a child. Not as much as when he told him to show him some respect or he'd toss him back into Hell, but close. "Anna said only four angels have seen the big guy and I'm guessing you ain't one of them, right?"

"Right." At the mention of Anna's name, Castiel looked away as if stung by the word.

The angel's eyes were fixed on the time worn nativity. Dean turned the tables and began to examine the mild mannered shell Castiel inhabited. Everything about the host was average and normal, except the eyes. They were some strange shade of crystal blue, too intense to belong to a human being. Some complex memory played through those eyes.

"If you don't have the inside track, how can you be sure that this 'Silent Night' business was true?"

"Because I was there."

"You mean like 'there' there? Floating around spooking the shepherds there?"

"Gabriel got top billing but we were all there."

"Well, I'll be damned."

"You were but we fixed that, remember?"

Dean groaned loudly. "Insensitive much, Dude."

"Sorry."

"So what was it like?"

"It was a glorious event and sad at the same time."

"How?"

"Glorious because the Savior of the World was come but sad because we knew how the story must play out." Castiel looked deeply into Dean's eyes. "For salvation, there must be sacrifice and sometimes suffering. You know that."

"So why didn't you guys pop up on Easter and save him?" Dean looked back to the manger, connecting his holidays.

"If He had asked, we would have, but that wasn't the way. His plan was to take on the suffering and sin of the human race so that belief would be your salvation. Father's suffer for their children. You know that, too."

"I suppose." Damn, he didn't want to think about his dad tonight. The dad that pissed him off so much. The dad it was hard to live without once he was gone. The dad who had turned himself into a human sacrifice to buy him more time on earth.

"The Father gave you what you're people asked for – proof and salvation. Some believed. Some did not," Castiel held out both hands, one for each side of the coin. "Then, we were told to leave you on your own for a time to digest it all and make up your minds." After a moment's thought, Castiel added, "Perfect love takes some time to digest."

Dean went silent for a time. It was the first conversation he'd had with the angel that didn't involve instructions or observations on the end of the world being at hand. He'd asked Castiel a question and gotten an answer. Castiel had been in Bethlehem. Sam was going to love this, when he sobered up.

"Do you remember when you were an angel?" Castiel's voice was as level as if he'd asked Dean to pass the cranberry sauce at dinner.

That yanked Dean Winchester out of his own thought process. "What did you say?!"

"I remember. You were three years old and your mother forced you into a white robe and halo just like that one," Castiel pointed toward the fake Heavenly Host fastened above the fake cows and sheep.

"No, I don't ."

Castiel's reflexes didn't hesitate for joints or muscles to move. One second, his hands were pointing toward the nativity. The next, two fingers brushed against Dean's forehead. He remembered. The flash of a camera taking his picture. His mother smiling at him from the crowd as he stood with the other squirming kids making up the angels singing around the manger. Dad giving him the thumbs up because he hadn't run off the stage in humiliation because they made him wear that white dress. 'It's a robe, Dean, not a dress,' Mom said, 'and if you'll be a good angel we'll get ice cream.' He felt the kiss on his cheek and smelled her perfume and she was as real as if she was standing in front of him.

Dean didn't know how long he'd sat on the hard wooden pew with his eyes closed bathing in the memory. It washed over all of the shame and horror stacked up in his mind. It was the first real peace he'd know since climbing out of the dirt three months ago. Slowly, he opened his eyes to find Castiel appraising him with those unexplainable blue eyes.

Dean remembered those eyes. They were in another man's face, sitting behind his mother as she watched him sing and silently prayed her son wouldn't run off stage in a panic because he was scared of being in front of the Christmas Eve congregation. The little boy had watched the strange man and felt calm wash through him and he wasn't afraid. The man's hand brushed against his mom's shoulder and her eyes closed, too. It meant something.

"You've been watching me?" Dean asked.

"Since you were born. I was allowed to become corporeal for the first time in two thousand years. You are an interesting assignment." Castiel smiled again with the genuine pleasure of before.

"That's creepy," Dean said, a half-hearted smartass tone in his voice. It was overwhelming. The memory. The knowledge. He didn't exactly know how to react. "Did she know? My mom?"

"Yes."

"Did she know why?"

"No. It was best that way," Castiel said, almost apologetically. "Merry Christmas."

"You tell me you've been following me around for the past thirty years, pop that memory in my head, and all you have to say is 'Merry Christmas'?" Dean rubbed his temples. Castiel's mental whammies often left a headache behind.

"Isn't that what you do when you give someone a Christmas gift?"

Dean couldn't help but laugh at the puzzled look on the angel's face. "You make one hell of a Santa Claus." After a moment's pause, he added, "Merry Christmas, Dude."

In response, Castiel merely rose from his seat, closed his coat more tightly around his body, and turned to leave. "Enjoy your holiday. You'll need to be rested for what's to come." He walked casually down the aisle toward the door and melted into it.

"Ho Ho Ho, to you, too, buddy," Dean whispered, then leaned back into the pew to enjoy his newly acquired Christmas memory. It replayed over and over, start to finish, in his mind, spreading across the turmoil and taking over.

In a few minutes, he was going to get up and go back to his hard motel room bed and sleep soundly for the first time in a long, long time.

The end….Merry Christmas.


End file.
